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I just heard that FX has a new original comedy series coming out called Adults. Adults is a comedy that'll feel relatable if you ever find humor in the struggles of being an adult in 2025. You know, like remembering your full social security number or to drink water or perhaps having your third existential crisis of the month. Best part is that all episodes will be ready for your next weekend binge. Watch FX's Adults Wednesdays on FX. All episodes now streaming on Hulu.
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♪♪♪
What is going on, true crime fans? I'm your host, Heath. And I'm your host, Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Hello, everybody. Hope you're doing well today. The case we have for you guys is one of those just devastating, twisted stories that gripped people across the world when it happened. And not to mention, it didn't even happen in the United States. So you are actually correct. The poll that it had was worldwide. Yeah.
And on top of that, it's a grossly despicable story. And the pure idiocy that we're going to tell you guys about today will absolutely shock you. So true. It really will. We're going to, I think, have a lot of fun with that angle of things because you guys are just going to be like face or hand. Face palm. Face palm. Hand to face. Hand to face. Face palm. So frustrated. But both...
Before we dive into the story, I want to remind you guys that my thriller novel Nightwatcher is coming out on July 8th. It's about a late night radio show host in Portland, Oregon, who survived a childhood encounter with a serial killer called the Hiding Man. He's a horrifying masked serial killer only to have her past resurface when a chilling caller shares a story that sounds all too familiar.
pulling her into a dark hunt for the truth and forcing her to question if the monster from her past is back. So it's gloomy, it's creepy, it's dark, it is very true crimey. So check it out. You can pre-order it now, Nightwatcher. And you guys are going to love it. So without further ado, this is episode 507 of Going West. So let's get into it. ♪
Bye.
In August of 2014, a 62-year-old American woman was found brutally murdered and stuffed inside a suitcase at a luxury resort in Bali.
What began as a baffling international mystery soon turned into a media frenzy as investigators sifted through surveillance footage, hotel records, and text exchanges where they uncovered a chilling tale of privilege, power struggles, and a family dynamic more twisted than anyone could have imagined. ♪♪
This is the murder of Sheila Von Weese.
Sheila Von Weiss was born on June 10th, 1952 in Minneapolis, Minnesota to parents Lois and Norton as the oldest of three children. Later joined by younger siblings, Debbie and Bill.
Although she was born in Minneapolis, her family eventually relocated to Grosse Pointe, Michigan, and then to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And then after completing high school, Sheila headed to Simmons College in Boston, Massachusetts, where she majored in political science before moving again to Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, receiving her MBA.
Now, for a while, she worked for Doubleday Publishing in New York and then finally settled in Chicago, Illinois. So with these degrees under her belt and a mass of experience and obvious scenery changes, it's really no wonder that Sheila was described by her many friends as chic, cultured and worldly.
She loved wine and opera and was a frequent and enthusiastic hostess who loved planning parties and just bringing people together. And it was through her gregarious nature and love of music that she met James L. Mack, who was a very prominent figure in the Chicago jazz scene, as well as an accomplished composer, producer, and professor.
In addition to producing, composing, and conducting, he also taught jazz studies at Harold Washington College in downtown Chicago for three decades. His first two marriages, before meeting Sheila, of course, brought him five kids, Kathy, Debra, Donna, Elaine, and James Jr., though, as you guys can guess, both of these unions ended in divorce.
And despite their 22-year age gap, James was instantly charmed by Sheila and vice versa and just how much they had in common. So they fell hard for each other.
Now, after Sheila and James got married, they welcomed a daughter that they named Lois, though she later preferred to go by her middle name, which was Heather, and she was born in 1995. The family put down roots in a stunning historic home in Oak Park, which is actually a suburb just west of downtown Chicago. The three traveled extensively together because Sheila really wanted her daughter to have a taste for the world outside of her hometown.
And naturally, Heather also picked up her parents' love of the arts and music, and eventually started dancing competitively. I mean, by all accounts, she had everything that she could have ever wanted.
But in 2001, six-year-old Heather's father, James, began to suffer health problems that would plague him until his eventual death in 2006. And this is actually a pretty crazy story because while on a cruise to the Mediterranean on Royal Caribbean, 71-year-old James cut his foot on the pool ladder, which was an injury that, you know, should have been pretty minor, but actually worsened over time.
Now, according to James, the cup became infected due to improper care by the cruise ship doctor. So he wound up hospitalized with a spinal infection and was confined to a wheelchair for the majority of the rest of his life.
Though he would only live about five more years after this. That's crazy. Like, just a simple cut from a pool ladder and it just eventually ends in your death. Gets an infection, it just gets worse and worse, and then, yeah. And a spinal infection? Like, this is crazy. Yeah, pretty brutal. Well, Sheila and James sued Royal Caribbean for improper care, and they actually won over a million dollars. But obviously...
The money just couldn't reverse the toll that it took on James' life. Yeah, it's like it's great to have that money, but that doesn't save him. Exactly. He's still going to pass away five years later. Because as time passed, his health declined steadily until he was diagnosed with colon cancer. Not knowing how much time he had left, the family really wanted to at least have one more trip together. So they headed to Greece in August of 2006.
And shortly after they arrived, 76-year-old James complained that he really wasn't feeling well. So he laid down in the hotel room. But while Sheila stepped out and James and Heather were left in the room alone...
James suffered a pulmonary embolism or a blood clot in his lung. And he died right there in front of his young daughter, Heather, who would have at this time been like 11 years old. And according to Sheila, as you guys can imagine, like what a traumatic thing for her to have to witness, especially, you know, he had a blood clot in his lung. He died right there. It wasn't just like a peaceful passing away in his sleep. It was probably a little bit.
Yeah, and traumatic. Absolutely. So Sheila says that Heather was never the same after this.
She, though, blamed her mother for taking them on the trip when her father, James, wasn't well enough to travel. And at one point, even alleged that Sheila had murdered her father. Which is, come on, that's not fair. Yeah, this is all just like, she's just really deeply upset by the death of her father and she's trying to find a rational reasoning for it.
aka, well then you had to have killed him. Right. Which is not true, of course. And really this seemed to stem just from Heather always having been a daddy's girl and now she was left alone with her mom and she just blamed her for that. She wanted her dad back. So she was lashing out. Thus, Heather's behavior became erratic and retaliatory in the aftermath of her father's abrupt death. And Sheila struggled a lot with this.
They frequently butted heads, even actually when James was still alive. This didn't start when James died. It just got a lot worse. It was an ongoing thing. Yes, absolutely. And it really did get so much worse because police were called to the house over 80 times between 2004 and 2013. So while Heather...
Was between 9 and 17 years old. That's insane. 80 times the police had to come to your house because you weren't getting along with your mother. Yeah, I mean, it was really bad because it wasn't just them fighting and arguing. It got so much worse than that. And it also wasn't just Heather fighting.
out at her mom. She was doing that. She had more troubling behavior past just the way that she treated her mom. There was more indirect ways as well. Like, for example, she was skipping school a lot. She was partying. She was stealing. So she was lashing out in her own life. And that affected her mother as well, because if she's skipping school, she's stealing. She's going out late.
and she's just a teenage girl, this is really affecting her mother too, but more indirectly, like I said. Like she would frequently take items of Sheila's as well or just grab cash or credit cards directly from her purse. Yeah, without a care in the world. Just, hey, I'm going to take this card. And she did this for years, but their relationship really took a turn for the worse when Heather began to lash out at her mom physically and police were called to the home immediately.
multiple times for domestic violence disturbances. Heather hit her mother, Sheila, bruised her, pushed her down the stairs,
And in one instance, even broke her arm. That is wild. Yeah. I mean, I was going to say before we move on, like after those 80 calls, it should have been clear that they should not be living together. I agree. You know what I mean? Like something needs to be done. Take her out of the house. Maybe she needs to go with somebody else. I don't know. And we're going to talk about this as well. Just different things that her mother, Sheila, said to other people in an email or a letter.
And it was very clear that Sheila knew this as well. She knew that something like this couldn't keep going on like this. Yeah, it couldn't go on forever. But for some reason, it did. Now, Heather was arrested three times for physically assaulting her mom. So that's also huge as well. This is before she's 18. She was arrested three times for physically assaulting her mom.
And those are just the incidents that investigators are aware of. On her social media, she was constantly recording videos mouthing off to authority and complaining about her mom, which is...
Super inappropriate and just, you know, no need to air your dirty laundry like that. Yeah. To your teenage friends. If there's, you know, any angsty teen out there, this would be like, she's the queen of them. Tip of the top of the mountain. Exactly. Queen. Yes, you're totally right. But it was really sad because not wanting her daughter to possess a permanent criminal record, Sheila always wound up dropping the charges. Yeah.
But Heather once admitted to her that she had, quote, demons inside her that she didn't know how to control. So this wasn't like Sheila was a terrible person and a difficult mother and Heather was trying to get justice for herself. These actions were severe and unwarranted and likely stemming from deeper psychological turmoil. Completely agree. So Sheila confided in multiple family members and friends that she was scared of her daughter and
and what she might do, and fearful that Heather's behavior was getting worse. I can't imagine what that would feel like as a parent to be afraid of your own child. Yeah, pretty scary. Well, while Sheila agonized over the proper way to discipline her wayward teenager, Heather's recklessness and rebellion continued to intensify.
One night while out at a party with friends, she watched a performance by an amateur rapper who went by the name Tommy X or Tommy EXX, whose real name was Tommy Schaefer, and he is a very, very important piece to this entire story. Now, like Heather, he had attended Oak Park and River Forest High School, so they had a little bit of history, and Heather fell for him instantly in school.
Two grades above Heather, Tommy had enrolled in Columbia College, but he ended up dropping out, wanting to focus on his music career instead. Now, while growing up in Oak Park, Tommy had this tight-knit group of friends who were progressing through school together. But by the time they reached high school, many of them had basically begun distancing themselves from Tommy, kind of alleging that he had a penchant for exaggerating and telling downright lies.
For example, one mother of a friend of his remembered, quote, So yeah, this guy is just basically your run-of-the-mill liar. Well, Tommy was also into Heather, with many believing that he was just in it for her family's money. And she would frequently steal her mom Sheila's credit card and disappear for days, footing the bill for she and Tommy and their friends to stay in hotels forever.
and go out in the city. It's just so disrespectful. Yeah, you're just taking your mom's money and just being a dirtbag. But she also looked at this like, well, this is my money because this is from my dad's career, even though her mom was successful as well. Yeah. So she's saying...
Yeah, you're still a teenager, like, grow up a little bit. Well, Sheila felt strongly that Tommy, of course she felt this way, was directionless and just dishonest. And he was also just a bad influence on her already troubled daughter.
So wanting to steer Heather away from him, Sheila bought a condo in the Gold Coast neighborhood of Chicago, which is this kind of enclave of beautiful houses and apartments near Lake Michigan for herself and for her daughter Heather, just to get away a bit. But this did not stop Heather from stealing from her and spending most of her time with Tommy.
But still, Sheila's trying so hard to get her daughter on a good track, so hoping to recapture some of the magic that they felt traveling together when, you know, Heather was young and James was still alive, Sheila booked them a stay at the luxurious St. Regis Resort in Bali, Indonesia, complete with two round-trip first-class tickets, which
Which set her back actually $10,000 each. That is a lavish gift that is very generous. That's like, you don't deserve this first class trip to Bali, but because I love you, I'm going to take you even though you're a little shithead. Yeah, it's sad because it feels like this is in her mind the only way, like kind of her last resort in a way. She's like,
We have gone through so much over the years since dad passed. The police have come to our house over 80 times. We got to we got to get this shit together. We got to figure out how to get along. And so I'm going to take you on this trip. And I hope that we can see eye to eye and maybe bond. Exactly. Which is really sad as well that she felt like she had to spend all this money to make her daughter happy. But she was willing to do it.
So four days before she was murdered, Sheila wrote in an email to her friend Elliot that Heather had disappeared while they were transferring from another hotel to the St. Regis, like Heath just said, in Bali, writing, quote, Heather ran off a few hours ago and she cannot be located. Upon checkout, I discovered that she visited the clinic here and fraudulently signed my name and room number for prescription painkillers four days ago.
She secured quite a supply, it seems. I am more frightened than ever. Now, fast forwarding to the next week. On Tuesday, August 12th, 2014, a cab idling at the taxi stand outside the St. Regis, of course, in Bali, was summoned by a young couple with a hefty gray suitcase. And although they were offered help by multiple employees of this beautiful, nice hotel, the
The couple refused to let anybody handle this bag. Obviously, you guys can see this is going in a very eerie direction. Very dark. So the pair loaded this suitcase into the trunk and then requested that the driver wait for them to fetch the rest of their belongings.
But here's the thing. This couple were taking so long. This driver is waiting nearly an hour. So finally he gives up and he goes to grab the suitcase from his trunk so he can move on, you know, pick up somebody else in his car. And he noticed a dribble of blood coming down the side.
And to his horror, he recoiled and noticed that there was blood all over the exterior of the suitcase that had just been in the trunk of his car. Detectives, the coroner, and a forensics team were called to investigate right away. And the identity of the deceased was quickly determined to be 62-year-old Sheila Von Weiss.
She had endured a brutal attack before her death. And though her cause of death had ultimately been asphyxiation on her own blood, her jaw had also been fractured and she sustained a broken nose as well as defensive wounds on her hands and forearms. And on the security footage, investigators saw 18-year-old Heather and a young man who appeared to be around her age heading outside, struggling, reeling.
with this very suitcase. When police began speaking with employees, multiple people reported having seen an altercation between Sheila and her daughter Heather the night before. And here's what happened. So Heather, of course, like always, had stolen her mom's credit card to fly her boyfriend Tommy to Bali, purchasing a $12,000 business class plane ticket for him and then putting
putting him up at the St. Regis Hotel, whose rooms currently start at around $600 a night. She is such a spoiled brat. Yeah, and like this is supposed to be a bonding trip with her mom, but she does not care. And she's saying, well, I want my boyfriend here.
So I'm going to make it happen on my mother's dime. Well, you know, she also had this ulterior motive that we are going to talk about. Yes, very much so. But obviously, this was so upsetting to Sheila when she found out because not only...
had her daughter Heather spend all that money on Tommy's ticket, but she in the first place did not approve of Heather's relationship with Tommy and again was hoping to get some quality time in with her daughter to turn things around.
So Sheila and Heather argued publicly before heading to their room to continue their discussion in private. And then Heather and Tommy could be seen wandering the hotel as well as shifting between their rooms multiple times in the early morning hours of August 12th.
Which, again, is the morning that Sheila's body was found in that suitcase. Well, let's talk a little bit more about these two idiots, because later that morning, the two of them tried to check out sans Sheila, but their bill had not been paid, because it needed to be signed for by Sheila. So Heather and Tommy casually told the front desk that they were going to go back to their room and wait until her mom returned. But instead, they could be seen on security cameras...
removing their bags and heading out to the gardens in the back, then escaping to the streets and hailing a cab. So they're like, we're not going to pay this bill at all. We're just going to move on. They then checked into another hotel, though this one was far less ritzy.
Now, thankfully, the St. Regis still had their passports, so they couldn't flee very far without coming back to get those, which they couldn't release until the bill was signed for. How stupid. This is the first... How stupid of many. You're not going to escape the country because you don't have your passport, idiot.
Well, they were also pretty easy to track down, having used their real names and Sheila's credit card to check into this other hotel. And arriving without any luggage, like they didn't have anything, they just showed up to the hotel, nothing in hand. So after being tipped off by the staff, police knocked on the door, announcing themselves as housekeeping. Because remember, at this point, the police are suspecting that Heather and Tommy are responsible for Sheila's body being in that suitcase.
So they then entered the room and arrested both of them on the spot. Now, according to Heather and Tommy, they had actually been robbed by a gang of attackers who had killed Sheila. Yeah, okay. This is their first story. Yeah, this is the first of many. And they said that they fled to the next hotel without reporting it because they were afraid that the gang would come back for them.
But having already seen the suspicious activity on security camera footage, police already knew that this was a dumbass lie. So they took possession of their phones to search, and they found a goldmine of suspicious texts that laid out their entire plan. And these two knuckleheads affectionately referred to themselves as Bonnie and Clyde, thinking that they were doing this big, cool, badass thing, you know?
Well, in one slightly self-aggrandizing text from Heather, she explained to Tommy, quote, quote,
It takes several years of watching. I've been watching her routine, and I know what I do control. I'm sneaky, I'm smart, and I watch. Trust Bonnie. Don't make everyone else's mistake and underestimate me.
I just heard that FX has a new original comedy series coming out called Adults. Adults is a comedy that'll feel relatable if you ever find humor in the struggles of being an adult in 2025. You know, like remembering your full social security number or to drink water or perhaps having your third existential crisis of the month. Best part is that all episodes will be ready for your next weekend binge. Watch FX's Adults Wednesdays on FX. All episodes now streaming on Hulu.
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Trust Bonnie. Yeah. What a nerd, bro. Such nerds. Oh my God. That's such a cringy text. Trust Bonnie. Don't make everyone else's mistake and underestimate me. The witch. I know what makes her tick. Sorry not to laugh about this because this is insane behavior. She's just such a dork. But that is what a, yeah, what a weird text. So let's take it back to the beginning of this trip.
Tommy arrived at the St. Regis Hotel in Bali around 12.45 p.m. on Monday, August 11th. Again, this is 2014, so the day before the suitcase was searched by police. And about an hour later, Heather told him that they should rendezvous when he was settled in his room.
The two met up later that night and wandered around the hotel together for hours. Then at 2.45 a.m., they retired to their separate rooms. And when they did, Heather texted Tommy that her mom still wasn't asleep, which led investigators to believe that they were waiting for her to fall asleep so they could kill her.
Around 3.15 a.m., they met up again in person, but Sheila then headed out looking for her daughter so she's still awake, and they confronted each other in the lobby. According to 18-year-old Heather, Sheila grabbed her arm to steer her back to her room, which further set Heather off.
Tommy advised via text, quote, try your best. Can you whack her in the head with a big ass pole? What the fuck? That's so random. Like that's like, bro, random weapon who has a big ass pole laying around. You know what I mean? So true. Like, yeah, there's no specific weapon. A what? B, why would you send this in a text? But it's going to get worse.
And then after this, this one's really funny. After this, Tommy texted Heather and said, relax, you're Bonnie, do it. Again, just dork. But Heather was beginning to get cold feet, it seemed, because she then sent Tommy, I think I need you in here too.
As they continued to text back and forth to get up the nerve to do what they had set out to do, Tommy texted Heather, quote, Heather then responded, quote,
Weighing out their options, Tommy texted her a picture of a glass fruit bowl with a metal handle, wondering if that was a viable option. So they're literally texting back and forth their exact plans. He sends her a picture of the murder weapon and says...
Does this work? Yeah. This is just how dumb these two are. You know, they think they're highly intelligent, like they're going to plan this elaborate murder and get away with it. Bonnie and Clyde. Yeah. You're just you're not going to get away with it. You're texting your war plans. Come on. Yeah, exactly. Well, as they continued, she told him, quote, be relentless, even if she's mad.
At first, they were using the code SAYHI to mean murdering her mom. But as you can tell, eventually, they gave this up altogether, giving very little thought to what would happen if their devices were searched. Obviously, you know, they're just, they're laying it all out and they don't think anybody is going to find out somehow. I like how they just, you know, in the beginning, they're like, okay, we're going to use a code word or a code phrase, SAYHI,
And then now he's like, is this bull good to whack her over the head? Yeah. Like, dude. Well, then Tommy could be seen on camera emerging into the hallway with something hidden under his shirt. So he can say it over text, but God forbid a camera sees him holding a bull. It just gets even more dumb because it's not like he's like concealing a knife, which could easily be concealed on a security camera.
Suddenly he's pregnant. Suddenly he's pregnant with a bowl under his fucking shirt. Well, with Heather's help, he then went into the room and with this object that he was concealing, he bludgeoned Sheila to death. Though Heather's story on this has changed multiple times. Sometimes she claims that she was cowering in the bathroom at the times and other times she was not.
But then Heather and Tommy spent the morning cleaning up the room and loading Sheila into the suitcase. And remember, this is in a hotel room. There's probably carpet. And I say probably because there's no photos online of the room or the crime scene or anything like that. But I did see photos of this hotel. First of all, you either have the ocean out your door or a jungle. It is literally so beautiful. But most of them have large rugs or carpet.
And she was bludgeoned. So, and then she was put in a suitcase. Yeah. So we can imagine there was a lot of blood and this was a real crime scene. And not very easy to clean up. No. Well, when Tommy spoke with investigators, they claimed that Sheila had attacked him after he visited, which was supposed to be in order to support Heather in telling her mom that she was pregnant. Yeah.
But Heather revealed that she had gotten pregnant twice before, and that, since she was a minor, Sheila forced her to have an abortion both times. Though this claim is only corroborated by her defense attorney. Heather later admitted, quote,
Understandably, Sheila was not supportive of her daughter being, you know, attached to Tommy forever because he's a dumbass. And I mean, this guy has no aspirations or ability to care for Heather or a baby. So Sheila knew that the responsibility would fall onto her own shoulders.
But in their interrogation, both Heather and Tommy claimed that Sheila was threatening to cut the baby out of her stomach and that she was also attempting to strangle Tommy. If she was trying to strangle Tommy, it was because he was attacking her, in my opinion. Like, this is a woman who just spent over 30 grand to try to connect with her daughter. So for them to turn this around and make her look like the monster and the instigator...
is just despicable, but I mean, we really can't be surprised. Yeah, I mean, they're just trying to save their own asses. Well, in a 2016 interview, so two years later, Heather spoke more about the previous alleged pregnancies. She said, quote,
Well, on top of this, Heather begrudgingly admitted to having a problem with her temper, but claimed that she came by it honestly, saying, quote,
Which I don't believe is the case for her at all, because aside from the obvious contention in her relationship with her mother, Heather stood to gain all of her late father's money, which she believed to be a fortune of about $11 million. Like at one point before the murder, Heather was a little bit of a kid,
She texted Tommy that he had just made, he had just made $11 million, to which he responded that it, quote, felt too good to be true.
I don't know, girl. Like, it seems like you're into money to me. Yeah, it's not about this connection to your mother and having a relationship with her. You just want money because you're spoiled. Well, I mean, the fact that she just said, like, I had all the toys and the money I wanted, but that's not what makes a child happy. Then why are you so money hungry? Why are you taking your mommy's credit card all over town and beyond? Why'd you text Tommy that? Yeah, and also, that's so...
The fact that she's, that's so pick me, you know, like you just made $11 million as if he did, but that's her way of like, it seems like she's so into him and he's just into the money, you know? Yeah. And it's hilarious though, because in reality, Heather's settlement was only about $1.5 million, which for an 18 year old is a lot of money for a lot of people. That's a lot of money, but it was nowhere near what she thought. Yeah.
But Heather was sick of watching Sheila spend what she thought was her money, like I said earlier, and didn't want to have to wait two years until she was 21, because she was almost 19 at this point, in order to gain her inheritance. This is insane, though, because...
Not only does she think that she's getting $11 million, but she probably knows for sure that she is going to get $1.5 million at least when she turns 21. She can't wait two years and then just cash out a $1.5 million check and then just
go the fuck away from her mom forever if she wants to? Yeah, because also at this point, she's 18. She can be a responsible human being and human adult person and go get a job and get away from her mom. You're 18 years old. Actually, again, she was two months away from turning 19. So you have been at the age...
of adulthood, girl, like, get out of there. But this just proves again how stupid she is because if she had just waited the two years, not murdered her mom, not only would she have not gone to prison, but she would have had $1.5 million in her bank account. Yeah, like you said, she doesn't want to work for anything. She wants it now. She wants it now, yes. Well, back home in Chicago, Tommy's mom, Kia Walker, attempted to raise legal funds to hire a lawyer for him, writing, quote,
Tommy desperately needs to raise money to pay for a lawyer in Indonesia. I love and care deeply for my son. And she did actually receive thousands of dollars worth of donations, but she also received a fair amount of criticism for asking for help for her son, who was corrupt.
Clearly guilty of a brutal murder. Yeah, like that's, I mean, I get it from a mother's perspective. Like you want to help out your child, but also at the same time, you kind of have to expect some backlash because you're raising money for your son who was a murderer. She's victimizing her son saying, my son needs help. He just committed a horrific crime against a woman. What do you mean? He should just be on his own. And then on September 23rd, 2015,
Another member of Tommy's family was arrested. Another member, as in other than Tommy, was arrested for participating in Sheila's murder as well. Tommy's cousin, Robert Bibbs, was arrested for charges of conspiracy to commit murder for helping him plot the best way to dispose of Sheila Von Weiss.
On February 4th, 2014, so months before her murder, Robert texted Tommy, quote, So that bitch Heather is crazy, huh? She asked me to do something really insane for $50,000. She said the one thing that would make her most happy is if her mom dies. She asked me to find someone to kill her mom for $50,000.
So clearly this was very, very premeditated. Six months at least premeditated. Even to the point of hiring someone to kill Sheila. Hiring somebody to hire somebody to kill somebody. So Tommy replied to Heather or sorry, Tommy replied that Heather was absolutely serious and even added quote,
For some reason, I don't feel bad. Probably because you don't have a heart and because you're money hungry too. Yeah, you knew you were going to gain something out of this. And also, I will say, he probably was under the impression that Sheila was horrible because I bet... Heather manipulated him into thinking that, of course, because she's...
That's what she's going to do. Yeah, I mean, that's what she's doing to this day. She's telling everybody how horrible Sheila is and concocting all these stories. And so I am sure that that is in part why he didn't feel bad because it's almost like a gypsy Blanchard situation of like, my mother's abusive, help me kill her. Except for in this scenario, Sheila was not abusive in any way. Yes. And yeah, so it was just all made up. It's a reverse Blanchard.
Well, Tommy and Robert then went on to discuss various options for taking Sheila's life, with Robert advising him to make it look like an accident and even suggesting faking a drowning. But then Tommy threw in a shocking confession. He and Heather had already attempted to poison Sheila to make it look like a drug overdose, but it didn't work.
He also warned Tommy to stay in Heather's good graces and act as her best friend so that he could be set up for life.
Well, knowing that he was caught red-handed, Robert Bibbs pleaded guilty to these charges and received nine years in prison. Nine years for Robert Bibbs. Please. Well, for Heather and Tommy, they were charged with Sheila's murder on January 14th, 2015. And by the time their trial rolled around in April of 2015, Heather was blaming Tommy for what had transpired.
saying that he wanted her inheritance and that she was scared of him and that she was all but forced into the murder. Somebody always turns. Yeah, she's always got to point the finger somewhere else, you know? Very true. Well, this could hardly be true from all the text proof and Heather's previous actions towards her mother. But sadly, her defense attorneys tried to paint a portrait of an unstable and abusive home with both mother and daughter as the aggressor, depending on the day.
But there was just far too much evidence to the contrary. Because the prosecution also had a recorded phone call in which Heather admitted that she had placed her hand over Sheila's mouth to smother her and keep her quiet while Tommy murdered her. Which, if that is true, that is such a devastating image. Horrifying. Holding her mother while her boyfriend kills her. Ugh, so shameless.
Well, ultimately, Tommy was sentenced to just 18 years in prison, and Heather was only given 10 years. Insanity. Truly an injustice. Well, that spring, in the midst of her trial, she gave birth to she and Tommy's daughter because she really was actually pregnant at the time of the murder.
Now, per Indonesian law, Heather could keep her daughter with her in prison for up to two years. So she did this. That's crazy. Part of me understands it because of that much needed bonding time between a mother and a child, especially in those early years.
But, oh my god, this kid, this baby has to live in prison? Yeah, it sounds absolutely crazy. So her life became about tending to her newborn from within the confines of a Balinese prison. And although many think of serving prison in another country as more severe and less desirable than it would be to serve a sentence here in the U.S., Heather almost seemed to be enjoying herself.
She could be seen making friends, learning to speak Balinese, smoking, and making crafts with her fellow inmates. It seems in a lot of ways like it's maybe a little bit more lax, but I did look at a bunch of different pictures of the prison and it looks fucking horrible. Yeah, I mean, it probably is, but I mean, I don't know. I've never been there. But she, I mean, yeah, like you're saying, she was doing stuff. I mean, I read that she was even able to keep her phone with her
And she posted pictures and videos from inside prison. Yeah, so that's something that, you know, typically in U.S. prisons, you can't have phones, you can't have any devices like that. But apparently they kind of let it slide in Bali. So she was able to, like, continue posting to social media while she's in prison. I mean, even Heather herself said that it felt more like rehabilitation than punishment. Yeah.
But anyway, about a year after the trial, Heather and Tommy officially broke up, and he maintained limited contact with his daughter.
So at two years old, their daughter was moved out of the prison and into foster care, but was still able to visit both parents. Well, in 2016, Heather conducted an interview with True Crime News from inside her cell in Bali. And she took the first opportunity to portray herself as the victim of a volatile home life, saying, quote, It was not very healthy at all. My mother was an alcoholic.
She was also diagnosed with multiple personality disorder. And the thing with my mother is that she just didn't want me. She didn't want Heather Mack how Heather Mack was. So I became extremely close to my father and that also made her mad and that drove her nuts because I took her husband away from her.
Jesus, first of all, this is toxic as fuck. If this is even true.
Then she continues saying, then we would both hit her. And then it was just a pattern over and over and over and over until my father died. And then it got worse. I just have a hard time believing that he would. I mean, I know that some people abuse their spouses in front of their kids.
But that he would hit Sheila in front of Heather and then Heather would hit Sheila and then together they would hit her. I don't I have a hard time believing that. Yeah, it sounds completely fabricated. But it's also hard to believe because like you're saying, it sounds fabricated. Heather fabricates a lot of shit. Yeah, she's a liar. Yeah, so is Tommy. You know, so how how can we really know what's true?
But Sheila's siblings, I will say, called these allegations laughable and downright false. Her Aunt Debbie, Sheila's sister, described Heather as manipulative and cunning from a young age. And when asked to go through the prelude to Sheila's murder, Heather explained, quote,
Well, she didn't know at first. She was asleep. And of course, I left the room. I snuck off to the beach with him and she woke up. And that's when she went to the reception and they said, Tommy Schaefer checked in under your credit card. And she just went nuts. I just said, let's go to the room. We went to the room. We went to sleep. I went to Tommy's room and I said, I don't know what to do.
And he said, let me go talk to her. That also did not happen. Yeah. Again, she keeps changing her story. There's one thing that happened. Which is it? Tell us the truth. There's so many different stories. You're a liar. Well, we have the text messages. So it's not like, you know what I mean? Like there's nothing she can say. She's a liar. You're so right. I mean, that proves it right there. They were texting about the murder plot. And here she says, or here she's saying,
Well, you know, she was asleep and Tommy just went to go talk to her. That is not true. So she, sorry, I'm getting so mad. So she also claims that when they went down to her room from Tommy's sixth floor bedroom,
The fight, quote, escalated and got out of hand, which neither of them were expecting, which we also know is not true, as we can recall Tommy's text about Cain just whack her with a pole. Yeah. And, you know, does this, how's this bowl look? Yeah, again, just trying to save her own ass. Well, it was at this point Heather claimed that she finally broke down and admitted to Sheila that she was pregnant and that Sheila went ballistic, scalding,
scouting around the room for a knife in order to cut the baby out of her stomach. Or so Heather allegedly thought. What is up with this, though? I don't know. She says that it's happened multiple times that her mom is just running around with a knife trying to cut it up. And also, when she said earlier that she would chase me around the room until, or around the house until 3 or 4 a.m., she's just chasing me.
chasing you but she never gets to you and she never gets the knife to the stomach. That sounds like some sort of cartoon. Like you're running in a loop for three or four hours in the same room with each other like nobody can leave the room. Like did you ever think about going outside? Like that's how we know it's all bullshit, right? Maybe.
Well, Heather continued, quote,
She describes that they then bound her mother's bludgeoned body with duct tape and folded her into that gray suitcase where she was eventually found. But there was one major error in this story. Sheila had already known that her daughter was pregnant. So this idea that she was so angry at the revelation that she was attempting to kill Heather would not be true.
On August 1st of 2014, she sent an email to her friend Elliot, writing, Now, the candid interview with Heather ended abruptly when she was asked if the murder was premeditated.
She claimed that it wasn't, that she had never actually considered following through with her mother's murder. But when confronted with the text messages that confirmed she plotted it for six whole months, she told the interviewer that she would call him back, but she never did. I'm caught red-handed, girl. She's like, oh, fuck.
But around the same time that she granted this explosive interview, Heather told another conflicting story in a video that she posted to her social media. Again, she's in prison. She recorded this video from prison and it is just stupid. It's an unhinged video. Here it is. Okay, so this is a video that I need to make.
A lot of the times, since I've been a kid, I've heard, "The truth sets you free. The truth sets you free." And I never understood. But I'm Heather Mack, and I want to be set free. I don't want to live in a lie anymore. When I was 10, my mother killed my father in a hotel in Athens, Greece. Two weeks before I came to Bali, I found out that she killed my father.
And I made it up in my heart, in my mind, my soul, in my blood, in the oxygen running through my body that I wanted to kill my mother. First, I asked Tommy Schaefer to help me find somebody to kill my mom for $50,000. And he said no. After that, I got this whole new savage idea in my head.
that I wanted to kill her in a hotel room because she had killed my father in a hotel room. We were going to Bali, so I began to plot. I began turning off Tommy's phone, taking Tommy's phone when he was asleep, starting in Chicago, taking Tommy's phone and having conversations between Tommy and myself, texting myself, having fake conversations, and then deleting them before he could see them.
I did that because part of me knew that with this plan of killing my mom in a hotel, that she might, I might get arrested. I didn't want to get arrested by myself in a different country. So I came to Bali and I told Tommy that he was going to come here for a vacation.
So there's that. But years later, in 2019, a couple years later, she recanted this whole statement, this whole video, saying that she was actually being blackmailed by Tommy at the time, though how he could have possibly achieved this when he was given a worse sentence than she was and had no money to bargain with is not known. So it's, again, lots of story flipping, lots of blaming, right?
Well, Heather then added, quote, I don't regret killing my mother. And as evil as that may sound, that's my reality. Yet, Heather later said that she cried nearly every night for missing her mom. And around this time, she posted a picture of her mom on Instagram, again, from behind prison, Bali prison walls, with the caption, I miss you, mommy. I'm so sorry.
On October 29th, 2021, after serving just seven years of a 10-year sentence, 26-year-old Heather was released and reunited with her daughter. She was desperate to stay in Indonesia and raise her daughter there, but Indonesia declined to allow her to stay.
So, she was deported back to the United States and arrested immediately upon her arrival. Bet she saw that coming. She says, please don't make me leave Bali. Oh, yeah. And she's probably only saying that because obviously she knows once she gets back to the U.S., she's going to be charged with crimes on U.S. soil as well. So...
You may think that there was some injustice being had by only serving like seven years of her sentence in Bali. Which there still very much was. I mean, there was for sure, but her ass did not get away with this shit. She actually got charged in the U.S. as well.
So because of the conspiracy charges stacked against Robert Bibbs and the sloppy digital paper trail that they left behind them, the FBI was able to confirm that Heather, Tommy, and Robert had been discussing and plotting the murder for more than six months prior to its execution, and while still in the United States. Alongside Tommy, Heather was charged with one count of obstruction of justice,
and two counts of conspiring to commit murder in a foreign country. Heather's second trial was slated to take place in July of 2023, but shockingly, she pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to kill a U.S. national and accepted a plea deal for lesser charges later.
and a maximum sentence of 28 years in prison. Everybody clap. In a rare moment of humility and self-awareness, if this was even her real, true... Genuine. Yeah, this was genuine. Heather told the court ahead of her sentencing, quote, "'It doesn't matter what my relationship with my mom was. That is no excuse. There's no excuse for trying to harm her. I am responsible for my decisions.'"
Sheila's brother Bill, so Heather's uncle, addressed both Heather and the court by saying, quote,
It's been devastating and exhausting. We all knew justice was not served in Indonesia nine years ago. We are relieved the court today gave Sheila the justice she deserves. Sheila was wicked smart and had such wit. She loved listening to classical music and going to the opera. She had more books than anyone I know. She was very thoughtful and had a beautiful smile. She loved taking family photos.
Please remember her this way and not as the woman stuffed in the suitcase. On January 17th, 2024, Heather was sentenced to 26 years in federal prison and was also ordered to pay restitution to Sheila's family, so her extended family. And actually, they are the ones raising her daughter in Colorado.
Tommy has described Heather as a master manipulator and a monster, and claims that he doesn't want his daughter to be raised by her at all, not like she can be anyway.
In a rare interview, he explained that he hoped to keep his head down, serve his sentence in Bali, and pay his debt to society. And although he initially chose to deny his possibility for parole, he may be up for release as early as April of 2026 due to good behavior, at which time he would be extradited to stand trial for his charges in the States.
Thank you so much, everybody, for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes. Thank you guys so much for listening to this episode. What a wild ride.
And these two people are in prison for a very, very long time for being so completely dumb. But maybe not Tommy. He might get out next year, which is wild. And it's just it makes you wonder. He's probably going to get out next year and then he'll get extradited to the States and then they'll try him in the States. So he's probably going to suffer the same fate as as Heather. So true. And I bet he will, especially because it does seem like
Like, he was very responsible in her actual murder and planning the murder. So...
What a horrific story. Thank you guys so much for tuning into this one. Don't forget, we have many bonus episodes if you guys want to check those out. We have covered some really wild stories lately. The horrifically devastating disappearance of Tio Hayes in Australia. That was a recent one we came out with next week. Also, I just wanted to say quickly before we go.
Signing up for these bonus episodes, it is a great way to support our show. If you love Heath and Daphne, if you love Going West, it really helps us out. It helps us keep this show going. So, yeah, if you love that and you want some extra episodes and you want to support us, head on over to patreon.com slash goingwestpodcast or you can subscribe on Apple. Yeah, we have over almost 140 bonus episodes. It's a lot. Jinx. Jinx.
Whoa, you owe me a soda. Damn it. But yeah, and they're very similar to the ones we cover here, but we do leave the U.S. quite frequently. A lot of the times we go to Australia or Canada, but we go everywhere. So anyway, thank you guys so much. If you have a story that you want to hear us cover on Going West, please send us an email. That is the way to get something to us. Our list is long, but we're always adding to it.
And all right, we will see you guys on Tuesday. All right, guys. So for everybody out there in the world, don't be a stranger.
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